Talk:Hachiman Hikigaya/@comment-175.142.190.2-20130910173049/@comment-172.218.226.90-20150421091617
I thought I might pitch in my opinion for what it's worth. Bear in mind that this is all conjecture. Functionally, Hikigaya resembles an INTP more than anything else. While INFJs, INTJs, and INTPs all manifest a certain independance from others, their emphasis of said independance is subtly different. INFJs and INTJs lead with Introverted Intuition; this gives them a "long ranged" style of thinking which coupled with their auxiliary function (Extroverted Thinking for INTJ, Extroverted Feeling for INFJ) makes them more apt to strategize/lead others to realize their internal vision of the future. INTJs and INFJs are enterprising and forward thinking first and foremost; any independance is more the result of disinterest in following others in comparison to seeing their own internal vision through. This means that just as they prop up Introverted Intuition as their dominant function, they also repress Extroverted Sensation as their inferior function. If this were the case in Hikigaya, we might expect his worst moments to be hedonistic binges or sudden overpowering urges to engage in loose cannon behavior. INTPs, while similar, lead with Introverted Thinking and repress Extroverted Feeling. As opposed to the expressions of independance common to INTJs and INFJs, the INTP's independance occupies the center point of their mind. INTPs actively repress Extroverted Feeling (the function responsible for social façades and basically everything to do with being a polite, sympathetic, and appropriate member of society). The INTP's intellect, unlike the INFJ's or INTJ's, is primarily analytical and has no inherent interest in actually "doing" things in the real world. This puts the INTP in a particularly bad position regarding social niceties and dealing with emotions. For an INTP, their worst moment wouldn't nessecarily be a sudden abandonment of their forward-thinking, visionary mind, but the sudden loss of control over their emotions: an sudden uncharacterisic desire to be liked and appreciated by others. This fits rather well with the image of Hikigaya. As for the auxiliary and tertiary functions of the INTP, we also see them manifested in their natural ways with Hikigaya. Extroverted Intuition acts as his auxiliary function, and so while he might lack the long term predictive capability of the INTJ or the INFJ, he does display an uncanny understanding of situations as they occur in the now. His ability to intuitively grasp the underlying patterns in social situations is a good display of this ability. Finally, his tertiary function, also knows as his "relief" function (ie. the place he goes mentally when he's feeling stressed in order to protect and recharge himself) is Introverted Sensation. While dominant Introverted Sensors might display a powerful grasp of past details and information, as it occupies the tertiary position in Hikigaya, it instead manifests as his primary defense mechanism. Whether or not he says it, Hikigaya's method for dealing with his unfortunate past was the textbook TiSe loop: (ie. "I've already tried this once and it was terrible; I guess I'll just never do that again because the world sucks."). With all of these factors, I believe that Hikigaya is an INTP. His fixation on social belonging (his disdain for it is a form of fixation) speaks of an inferior Extroverted Feeling as opposed to Extroverted Sensing, and the other two functions of the INTP line up nicely with his actions and attitudes. Of course, this is all just speculation. I was basically just bored and thought I'd write this up.